The box of crap cameras comes to a close with three of the crappiest pieces of crap ever minted in the name of discount photography. Vivatar products in the 80's and 90's was the bottom of the cheese barrel in point and shoot cameras. I mean, they had a name, were sold by everybody, were cheap and at least those cheapy point and shoot FILM cams managed to take acceptable photos. Ahh, but all you needed was LIGHT. If you got a decent quality film, had decent processing and were in light, even the cheapest cameras could produce at least "acceptable" photos. Hell, I used a Vivitar camera for years. (...or was that Ansco? It may have been. I think it's an earlier blog.) Anyhell, Vivitar graduated into the digital world and well, with some sharpening, these would make "acceptable" photos. But when you can get a used Kodak for $3 that takes incredibly sharp pics with no post processing needed. Get the Picture? (Thanks Hawkeye. Just saw him say that on the MeeeeeTeeeeveeee.)

VIVICHEESE 3635 2.1 2 "AA" BATTERY SD CARD 

Actually, this camera does not seem so bad for it's age. It seems better than my old Cintar camera. It has a view finder. It has a separate LCD readout for status. I got this one from a thrift shop with a SD card in it. The door was broken, but a little tape helped.  It seemed like the terminals may have been dirty because I couldn't get this to fire up in the car. I tried putting the chip in another camera, but it didn't seem to work. So, It would wait until I got home.

See, all the features on this. Of course, with the LCD display and only 2 AA battery power, it was likely a power hog. So, I put it in my cleaning machine and it powered up and I managed to take a few blurry pics with it. A clunky interface and I'm not sure that if batteries had leaked into it, the camera itself wasn't affected by it. You could set this for "Super Fine" which I'm sure helped out when this was new. It shut off by itself a few times, and after resetting and trying again, I gave up.

Here is the best picture I could get. It's a picture of a picture I have on my wall of a Boomer The Dog original/parody of a free rag cover from Pittsburgh. The Vivicheese picture of the picture is just the cheese that this camera, in it's condition, could produce. Benefit of a doubt to age and treatment, but I'm bitter because...read on... (Oh yes, and that SD card, an "8G" SDHC card was not that at all. It was an 8 MEG card. No wonder why I couldn't save squat to it. It would have worked if it was a Smart Media card and I wanted to take 640x480 pictures.)

VIVIPOODLESQUIRT 3.3 2 "AA" BATTERY SD FIXED FOCUS

The dung continues. This one looks like any number of cameras put out in the mid 00's . Slim profile, slide opening. Almost like several Olympus cams and other cameras of note. This one has a viewfinder that seems like something a pro camera would have. It's tinted so when looking into white, it appears purple-ish.  Because it's fixed focus, it's got a tiny switch on it to set for macro or long distance, whatever.

See? It's the same as any other camera. I did think this would take pretty good photos. I did. Hopeful I am. The reviews of this camera vary from "okay" to "poo". The menus were easy to operate and as with all later cams, there was no LCD for data.

Actually, maybe I could use this camera in a pinch. If I was at the beach where I would worry about getting sand in the lens or I wanted to take blur master at a cheaper cheese price. No, it's not very good. Decent enough colors on this, one of my typical "I gotta try this cam to see how the pictures stand up" pictures. Gee, I still use video tape? Here I am doing a blog about junk and...well...yes, I still use video tape. Leave me alone. You take pictures with your cell phone. Why should you care? The colors are good on this picture though right?

VIVIBLUR X024 "10.1" 3 "AAA" BATTERY SD FIXED FOCUS

This was the first Vivicheese camera I added to my collection. It needed a HC SD card. It was a 3 "AAA" battery camera. Turns out the thin piece of paper that is the battery door was broken but managed to hold in the batteries so this could work. It is also fixed focus, so you can turn the lens to macro by a switch on the side. This really seemed like a perfect camera to keep in my car. It was so slim and would take bigger pics and if it got five-fingered from my glove box, I'd be out $3. All In.

Now, I think Vivitar had a good idea. A thin camera that took normal batteries. There was no rechargeable battery with a speciality charger to mess with.  Look at the size of the screen. Menus were easy to use. You could put this one in your pocket and snap pictures of your balls. I said it. Troubles set in when you breathe on the battery door, or at least sit the camera down with the slightest force. Then, all that screen needs a lot more power than can be delivered by AAA batteries. I bought a cheap set of AAAs when I was on the road so I could take some demo pictures. I may have gotten 15 when the batteries quit, and that's after I messed with this camera to even get it to take pictures. The SD card I put in it showed off pics taken with other cameras very nicely. I still thought of this camera as something for my car. But...

Another demo picture. Yes, I have a stuffed sheepdog wearing a Cumberland Brews tee shirt with a blue beanie style dog next to it and a flipped over Yuengling beer cap while sitting in a directors chair. You see it every day on every blog. It may appear to be something of a picture, but it suffers from every other cheap cheap generic camera. Terrible over exposed or under exposed, blurry or washed out photos when taken inside. You know, when Boomer first got his netbook, the camera inside took pictures that were kind of like this, except they were completely washed out. He took the housing apart and lo and behold, the original plastic lens cover was still on it when it was assembled. I gotta think these were mass assembled and may have had same issue. Trouble is, this took a pretty decent outdoor picture. Still, couldn't take with if I was without a cam, so into the box it went. 3 AAA batteries is no way to power a camera. I've been there and done that and got the Cumberland Brews tee shirt.

-Ric